Oranges Are Not the Only Ripe Fruit

Reports from ArtBasel 43 are focusing on the Mark Rothko painting being offered by Marlborough Gallery. Meanwhile, Gagosian is quietly asking nearly as much for a Warhol Marilyn work. Though both prices are keyed to prominent validating sales. In the case of the Warhol, the $100m said to be paid privately for Warhol’s Eight Elvises.

Colin Gleadell puts the Rothko into a similar context:

The most expensive work will be on London’s Marlborough Fine Art stand where Mark Rothko’s large abstract painting Untitled 1954, (pictured), is priced at $78 million (£50 million). The painting was formerly owned by New York banker turned art dealer, Robert Mnuchin, who sold it at Christie’s in 2007 for $26.9 million. It was the second highest price paid for a Rothko, behind White Center, 1950, which had sold the night before at Sotheby’s for $72.8 million to the royal family of Qatar. Untitled was, comparatively, a bargain, and was bought by a collector in Switzerland, who has now decided to sell. One very good reason for this decision is that another large Rothko painting, Orange, Red, Yellow, 1960, set a new record this year, selling in New York for $87 million. There were still three contenders for the painting as the bidding soared over $70 million, so two of them, perhaps, are still looking.